How do you jumpstart a dead star? Its a staple of science fiction, restarting our dying star with some kind of atomic superbomb. Why is our sun running out of fuel, and what can we actually do to get it restarted? Stars die. Occasionally threatening the Earth and its civilization in a variety plot devices in science fiction. Fortunately theres often a Bruce Willis coming in to save the day, delivering a contraption, possibly riding a giant bomb shaped like a spaceship, to the outer proximity of our dying Sun that magically fixes the broken star and all humanity is saved. Is there any truth in this idea? If our sun dies, can we just crack out a giant solar defibrillator and shock it back into life? Not exactly. First, lets review at how stars die. Our sun is halfway through its life. Its been going for about 4.5 billion years, and in 5 billion years itll use up all the hydrogen in its core, bloat up as a red giant, puff off its outer layers and collapse down into a white dwarf. Is there a point in there, anywhere, that we could get it back to acting like a sun? Technically? Yes. Did you know it will only use up a fraction of its fuel during its lifetime? Only in the core of the sun are the temperatures and pressures high enough for fusion reactions to take place. This region extends out to roughly 25% of the radius, which only makes up about 2% of the volume. phys.org/news/2014-03-jumpstart-dead-star
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:29:04 +0000
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